Scottish & Newcastle facts for kids

Scottish & Newcastle plc was a big company from Edinburgh, Scotland. They were famous for making and selling beer all around the world.

In 2008, two other large companies, Heineken and Carlsberg, bought Scottish & Newcastle. After the purchase, the part of the company in the UK was called Heineken UK until 2009. The part of the company that managed pubs is now known as Star Pubs & Bars.

The Story of Scottish & Newcastle

Portrait of William Younger by Alan Ramsay

The company's story began with a brewery run by Grizel Syme. This brewery later became William Younger & Co. In 1931, it joined with another company called McEwan's to form Scottish Brewers. Then, in 1960, Scottish Brewers joined with Newcastle Breweries. This big merger created the company we know as Scottish & Newcastle.

By 1985, Scottish & Newcastle was a major beer maker, especially in Scotland and the North of England. They were the fifth largest brewing company in the UK. By 1995, they became the biggest brewer in the UK after buying another company called Courage. They also owned many pubs, about 2,500 of them.

In the early 2000s, Scottish & Newcastle grew even more by buying companies in other parts of Western Europe. In 2002, they bought Hartwall, which was Finland's biggest drink company. This also made them part owners of Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH), a company with breweries across Eastern Europe.

In 2003, Scottish & Newcastle bought the Bulmers cider business. This added popular cider brands like Strongbow, Scrumpy Jack, and Woodpecker to their group. Later that year, they sold most of their pubs to another company, but they still helped manage some of them. To save money, many of their breweries were closed in 2004.

In 2006, Scottish & Newcastle worked with a Swiss shipping company called Kuehne and Nagel. Together, they started a business to sell drinks.

The Big Buyout

In 2007, Heineken International and Carlsberg announced they wanted to buy Scottish & Newcastle. Scottish & Newcastle did not agree at first. However, on November 15, 2007, Carlsberg and Heineken made a new, better offer.

On January 25, 2008, Scottish & Newcastle finally agreed to the deal. The company was officially bought on April 29, 2008. Later, on November 23, 2009, the part of the company that was in the UK changed its name to Heineken UK Ltd.

Breweries and Locations

Scottish & Newcastle had about 40,000 employees in the United Kingdom and Europe. They brewed beer at several locations:

• The Fountain Brewery in Edinburgh (closed in 2004)
• The Tyne Brewery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (closed in 2005)
• The Federation Brewery in Gateshead (bought in 2004, closed in 2010)
• T & R Theakston's Brewery in Masham (Scottish & Newcastle only owned a small part of this, and it's now owned by the Theakston family)
• John Smith's Brewery in Tadcaster
• The Berkshire Brewery in Reading (closed in April 2010)
• The Royal Brewery in Manchester
• Beamish Brewery in Cork
• Crawford Brewery in Cork

Popular Brands and Products

Scottish & Newcastle owned or had rights to some of the top ten beer brands in Europe. These included:

• Baltika (now owned by Carlsberg)
• Foster's (now owned by Heineken)
• Kronenbourg 1664 (now owned by Carlsberg)

They also owned many other well-known drink companies and brands:

• John Smith's (bought by Heineken)
• Strongbow Cider in the UK (bought by Heineken)
• Sagres in Portugal (bought by Heineken)
• Lapin Kulta in Finland (bought by Heineken)
• Mythos in Greece (bought by Carlsberg)
• Maes pils in Belgium (bought by Heineken)
• Kingfisher in India (bought by Heineken)
• Beamish Stout in Ireland (bought by Heineken)
• Bulmers Cider in the UK (bought by Heineken)
• Newcastle Brown Ale (bought by Heineken)
• Grimbergen, a Belgian Abbey beer (bought by Heineken)
• McEwan's in Scotland (bought by Heineken)
• Younger's in Edinburgh, Scotland (bought by Heineken)
• Simonds in Reading, Berkshire (bought by Wells & Young)

Some other brands they could use were:

• Beamish
• Courage
• Foster's
• Kronenbourg
• McEwan's
• Newcastle Brown Ale
• John Smith's
• Websters

Hofmeister was a type of light beer made by Scottish & Newcastle from the 1980s until 2003. Its adverts in the 1980s featured a bear named George, who wore a shiny yellow jacket and a special hat. The adverts from 1983 were even directed by the famous filmmaker Orson Welles. In 2016, the Hofmeister brand came back with a new recipe.

What Each Company Got

When Heineken and Carlsberg bought Scottish & Newcastle, they split the different parts of the business between them.

Heineken got:

• The UK part of Scottish & Newcastle (S&NUK)
• Beamish and Crawford in Ireland
• Hartwall in Finland
• Alken Maes in Belgium
• Central de Cervejas in Portugal
• A joint business in India with UB
• The US selling business

Carlsberg got:

• The other half of Baltic Beverages Holdings
• Kronenbourg in France
• Mythos (beer) in Greece
• A joint business in China
• Businesses in other markets like Switzerland, Africa, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Indian Ocean, South and Central America, Andorra, and Asia.

Images for kids

• 

  John Smith's Brewery, Tadcaster

See also

In Spanish: Scottish & Newcastle para niños